"Mongolia is kind of close, right?" Story about an attempt to ski everywhere in the world where there's snow. And in some places where there isn't. On and off-piste skiing on all continents, skiing into craters of live volcanoes, caving, climbing, photography, and travel.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Fortifications in Laajalahti

I recently blogged about a possible new cave in Laajalahti. But I didn't go there to look for a cave, I wanted to see the fortifications from before World War I, built by the Russians. I found many, including many small bunkers that one can easily visit.

The fortifications around Helsinki are the so called Krepost Sveaborg. The 10,000 men construction force was from Russia, but also partially consisted of paid Finnish labour, compulsory enlistment in Finland, and thousands of Chinese prisoners of war.

Quite interestingly, the Wikipedia article states that some of the Finns paid clerks to list them working on multiple sites simultaneously, to gather more income. The poor Chinese on the other hand were not dressed for the winter, which led to some of them attempting to escape work, as well as confrontations with the police forces.